Last year’s third bailout of Greece, imposed by Europe and the Inter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund, does to Greece what Ver­sailles did to Ger­many. It strips assets to sat­is­fy debts….a quag­mire of graft to sup­port an illu­sion that Greece could “com­pete” as part of the euro. Already in 2010 the IMF knew it was break­ing its own rules by pre­tend­ing that Greece could recov­er quick­ly, sus­tain a huge pri­ma­ry sur­plus, and repay its debts….…

N.B. A short­er ver­sion of this piece on Nigel Farage appeared in The Week­ly Stan­dard online

Nigel Farage and his hero. (The Guardian)

A few years ago Britain’s Nigel Farage was a polit­i­cal curios­i­ty, head of a fringe par­ty, gad­fly mem­ber of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, an ex-com­modi­ties bro­ker who nev­er went to col­lege, dis­missed as a nut­ter by rul­ing elites in Lon­don and Brus­sels. On 23 June 2016, he was wide­ly cred­it­ed with a key role in the ref­er­en­dum favor­ing Brex­it— Britain’s exit from the Euro­pean Com­mu­ni­ty.